1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rock crushing system that is employed, on a typical excavator wherein the rotation of the bucket as well as the powerful drawing of the extension arm toward the swing boom are used for the crushing of the rocks.
2. Background of the Prior Art
In a typical construction site wherein rocks are present during the site preparation stage, or concrete is present during the demolition phase, the rock (or concrete) is piled up in relatively large chunks and the large chunks are reduced in size for better loading onto and packing within the dump trucks that haul the rocks off to a remote location whereat the smaller rocks are offloaded. A standard tool in crushing larger rocks into smaller rocks is the densifier. The densifier is an excavator-based set of opposing jaws having teeth thereon which grabs large chunks of rock or concrete and crushes the material into smaller chunks in order to allow for better loading and packing onto the dump trucks that haul the material away.
While the densifier is well suited for its primary function of reducing the size of concrete or rocks, it is not particularly well suited for other tasks. A densifier may be able to load a dump truck with the reduced material if the truck is on hand by simply performing the crushing of the material over the bed of the truck. However, as is often the case, the densifier is tasked with reducing a mound of material prior to dump trucks being on site. The pile of relatively larger material is crushed and placed into a pile of relatively smaller material. Subsequent to the pile formation, the smaller material is loaded onto the dump trucks for removal, possibly being reduced even further by a smaller crusher. As a densifier is ill-suited for such a task, a different piece of equipment needs to be brought in to perform the task. The same is true if the pile, either pre-crushed or post-crushed, needs to be moved so as to gain access to the worksite whereat the pile is presently located. Oftentimes, the new equipment is a bucket-laden excavator. As such, two pieces of rather expensive equipment must be employed to deal with the pile of concrete or rocks which increases the overall job costs and typically increases the time to completion.
What is needed is a piece of equipment that can crush large pieces of rock, concrete, or other material, yet is able to effective manage the material either in a pre-crushed or post-crushed state. Such a device must be able to task the power of an excavator for the crushing phase without loss of cycling time relative to a densifier. Such a device must be able to manage the material at the job site including be able be able to effectively load material into a dump truck or be able to move material from one location to another at the job site. Advantageously, such a device must not be unduly expensive to produce and maintain.